A People That Shall Dwell Alone: Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy, with Diaspora Peoples

jan peczkis|Friday, July 29, 2016

As with author Kevin MacDonald’s other books, this one is jam-packed with information and supported by hundreds of scholarly sources of information. Whether agreeing with MacDonald or not, the reader will find his works stimulating. [See my reviews of his other books].

Jewish Eugenics as the Main Cause of Jewish Intelligence and Jewish Dominance,

As with his other works, the author makes no value judgments. He merely finds Jews and gentiles in evolutionary competition with each other. Kevin MacDonald finds anti-Semitism to be a ubiquitous phenomenon. He believes that a scientific study of Judaism is necessary in order to prevent the tragedies of anti-Semitism from being repeated. (p. 258).

WHAT IS A JEW?

MacDonald stops short of claiming that Jews are a race. (p. 23). However, he shows, from anthropological and biological evidences, that Jews worldwide are a very cohesive group, genetically speaking. Thus, for example, a Jew from Poland has more in common with a Jew from North Africa than he does with a gentile Pole. (p. 25). [Remember that MacDonald wrote this before the emergence of widespread DNA testing.]

The assimilation of the Jews was, at about the time of the Enlightenment, thought to be about Jews becoming just like other members of the nations they lived in, with the sole exception of religion. In actuality, Jewish assimilation led to Jews retaining much of their cultural and genetic separatism (p. 104). And, instead of Jews arriving at an occupation structure similar to that of gentiles, as had been expected to occur in the wake of the emancipation of the Jews, it instead led to Jews acquiring a very different occupational profile from gentiles. (p. 123). (More on this below.)

The community continuity of Jews is astounding. This is true even of those "island Jews", that is Jews (e. g, of the Orient and of eastern Asia, the Falasha of Africa, etc.) that had been cut off from other Jews for centuries, and which furthermore had little or no support from Jewish religion or culture all those centuries. (pp. 230-231).

MacDonald’s understanding of Judaism is as follow, “To conclude: Judaism as a group strategy developed a wide range of practices that serve to cement allegiances to the group and the submergence of individual goals to the overall aims of the group. Eugenic practices and the development of intensive cultural supports for group identification have resulted in a very powerful group orientation among Jews.” (p. 219).

JEWISH ENDOGAMY

MacDonald believes that Judaism was never a proselytizing religion, and this was by intention. It was not primarily because gentile authorities forbade Jews to proselytize. (pp. 71-76; p. 105). Regardless of its exact motive at the time, it ensured a closed Jewish gene pool.

Until very recent times, intermarriages between Jews and gentiles were very rare. This goes without saying. Numerous Jewish religious and cultural practices ensured that this was so.

Jews who converted to Christianity, whether voluntarily or by force, commonly retained contact with other Jews, intermarried between themselves, and maintained the customs and occupations of other Jews. This was notably true of the Conversos of Spain and Portugal, leading to the Inquisition taking steps against them. (pp. 116-119).

Now consider recent history. Even in the heyday of assimilationist thinking, intermarriage was opposed by even the more liberal Jewish religious movements (Reform Judaism). (pp. 98-99). Furthermore, according to MacDonald, the revival of interest, among American Jews, of Zionism and of Orthodox Judaism (actually, neo-Orthodox Judaism) is largely a reaction to the gentile-Jewish intermarriages that have occurred in recent decades. (pp. 99-101).

HIGH INTELLIGENCE AND JEWISH DOMINANCE

The high intelligence of Jews is the main factor that enabled Jews to rise to high levels in gentile societies, especially after Jewish emancipation. For instance, in the last several decades of pre-Nazi Germany, including in the Weimar Republic, there was a truly spectacular increase in the influence and dominance of Jews in German society. MacDonald cites an impressive collection of facts and figures in this regard (pp. 123-126), as he also does for Jews in the USA. (pp. 128-129).

The author believes that intelligence is primarily heritable, and he also accepts IQ as a valid measure of intelligence. On this basis, Jews, as a group, have an average IQ that is about one standard deviation higher than the average IQ of gentiles. (This is in the area of verbal IQ rather than visuo-spatial abilities: pp. 190-191). How did this become so?

HIGH JEWISH INTELLIGENCE: INADEQUATE EXPLANATIONS

One conventional explanation, consistent with the lachrymose view of history, was that Jews were constantly persecuted, and so only the most intelligent (and the most nonconformist-oriented) Jews were the ones able to resist the pressures and enticements of conversion, and thus able to pass on their genes to their offspring within the framework of continued Jewish self-identity. MacDonald finds this explanation possible in part, but inadequate by itself, notably in view of the fact that persecution frequently did more harm to highly-intelligent Jews than to less-intelligent Jews. (pp. 192-193). [In addition, severe persecution of Jews was episodic in nature, and that alone makes it doubtful if it was sufficient, by itself, to skew the Jewish gene pool.]

[The reader should also realize that wars and persecutions can actually benefit Jews in terms of heritable intelligence, and in competition with gentiles. For centuries, Jews had avoided military service, and so it was the blood (and genes) of the most intelligent gentiles (the nobility) that was shed on the battlefields.]

[Furthermore, consider Polish-Jewish relations. Jews seldom participated in the failed Polish insurrections of the 19th century, and they were spared the repressions and de-Polonization conducted by the Partitioning powers. The most intelligent Poles, the ones most capable of competing with Jews, were the ones who died in battle, were deported to Siberia, or were exiled. This created a net advantage to the Jews. More recently, decades of Communist rule has led to a further genetic “dumbing down” of Poles, as has the “brain drain” caused by the policies of the Fourth Reich (European Union), giving Jews additional advantages in advancing their agendas at Poland’s expense.]

EUGENICS: HOW JEWS BECAME NOTICEABLY MORE INTELLIGENT THAN GENTILES

Since time immemorial, Jews have not only valued education, but their customs ensured that Jewish intelligence would genetically become concentrated among Jews as a whole. (pp. 165-on). This tendency is of ancient origin. It started during the time of the Tanakh (Old Testament). (p. 181).

The educated Jews looked down on the ‘AM HA-ARES [AMEI HA’ARETS](the common Jews), and discriminated against them. (pp. 182-184). Furthermore, there are specified verses in the Talmud, and in Maimonides, that state that learned Jews should only marry other learned Jews. (p. 180). [For more on the strong elitism of learned Jews as directed against common Jews, as specified in the Bavli, please click on, and read my detailed review, of The Culture of the Babylonian Talmud].

The foregoing set the eugenic trend for more recent centuries. In fact, direct and indirect practices that favored intelligent Jews marrying other intelligent Jews have continued to fairly modern times. (p. 188).